Consider this scenario: former anti-apartheid activist Kovin Naidoo finds himself leading a multinational social enterprise after the death of his business partner. He struggles to balance his deeply held commitment to social change with the benefits of a fast-commercialising organisation. Should he expand the business commercially or stay a humble nonprofit?
This is a local example of a case study taught in MBA programmes. While teaching cases is not new — an estimated 80% of teaching in Harvard’s MBA programme is delivered this way — the rapid uptake of AI in education has refocused business schools’ attention on their value as a teaching tool.
The key objective of teaching case studies is to improve students’ decision-making ability by developing their diagnostic skills and critical reasoning. And because case studies typically involve real-time group discussion and analysis, and are deliberately open-ended with no one right answer, they force students to engage fully and think for themselves.
“They bring real-world dilemmas for students to think through, where the applied nature of the work means that there is no one-size-fits-all response,” explains former Gordon Institute of Business Science (Gibs) programme manager Kerryn Krige, now a senior lecturer at the London School of Economics, writing for Times Higher Education.
In the Naidoo example, students experience the CEO-level tension between profit and purpose, and consider how to balance competing value systems.
It is important for MBA students to walk in someone else’s shoes to gain an understanding of a management dilemma from their perspective, says Gibs professional associate Amy Moore. She is an associate editor of Emerald Publishing, which publishes emerging-markets case studies.
“Stories are a powerful way to teach, much more relatable and memorable than facts or figures alone,” she says.
Like all good stories, good case studies are never short of drama. They typically end on a cliffhanger, that “now what?” moment, which students must then solve, says Krige.
“Like a detective in a novel, students piece together the main facts, identify the red herrings, and through this process apply theoretical frameworks. Cases are wonderful tools for critical thinking, synthesis and analysis.”
For Boris Urban of Wits Business School, a test case must have a hook — a managerial issue or decision that requires urgent attention, or an overriding issue that pulls various parts together.
“The trick is to present the story so that the hook is not immediately apparent but discovered by students putting the relevant pieces together,” he says. “More importantly, the hook must be linked to a particular concept, theory or methodology.”
Stories are a powerful way to teach, much more relatable and memorable than facts or figures alone
— Amy Moore
A good case study, he says, introduces an interesting or novel subject or dilemma and raises challenging questions. Entrepreneurial decision-making is rarely based on perfect or full information, so learning to make decisions under uncertainty is also pivotal.
In short, the intent behind a case study is to reflect the ambiguity of real life; create a dialogue with students that encourages objectivity, critical thinking and research; and raise their ability to consider an issue from all sides.
“Importantly, the case should not represent the ultimate recipe for success but rather serve as inspiration for how a venture or entrepreneur may operate,” says Urban.
It is equally important that South African students encounter role models or study cases that resonate with them personally. However, published case studies used in business schools globally mostly involve white male protagonists, according to a May 2020 study by the University of California Berkeley’s Haas Business School.
The study, “The State of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in Business School Case Studies”, found that of the 19,000 cases listed by Harvard Business Publishing Education (which comprise roughly 80% of cases used in business schools around the world), only 1.3% include a black executive as a central decision-making figure.
Moreover, women were protagonists in only 11% of the 73 best-selling cases from the Case Centre (another main distributor to business schools) analysed between 2009 and 2015.
The Haas study also found that most case studies don’t usually incorporate key topics related to diversity, equity and inclusion — all critical issues for South African businesses.
Local business schools are aware of these shortcomings and are rapidly expanding the portfolio of local case studies.
Moore says she is proud to be generating more local case studies and bringing more diversity to them, from the types of protagonists and the dilemmas faced to their location, saying: “Our cases highlight the complexity of the dilemmas we face on the continent and particularly in South Africa.”
The fact that they are also winning awards in international competitions and are being taught around the world is a credit to local business schools and bodes well for the future of their MBA programmes.
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